by Ray Garton
“Yeah, okay. Gonna be long?”
“Shouldn’t be. Don’t worry, you got plenty a company.” He looked down at the floor where four bodies formed sprawling lumps under a tangle of blankets.
“Who’s here?” she said as she squinted down at them.
Andy frowned for a moment and shrugged. “I’m not even sure anymore. People’ve been in and out today.”
“Do me a favor before you go?”
“Sure, what?”
She reached over and took her black vinyl kit from the end table and handed it to him.
Andy looked at the kit disapprovingly and sighed. He only smoked weed, he didn’t do the hard stuff. He didn’t like it when Sherry did, either. She didn’t do it very often. Sometimes she got an itch for it, like she’d had the day before. At least she thought it had been the day before. She frowned.
“What day is it?” she said as he took the kit and opened the zipper.
“Tuesday.” He opened the kit and went to work. “You know I don’t like you doing this shit. You do it much longer, you’re gonna have trouble getting off it.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
Sherry liked to watch him as he held the lighter under the spoon, as he loaded the spike. As he put the tourniquet – a length of surgical tubing – on her arm. Then he tenderly felt for a vein, gently inserted the needle, and -
All the gumminess went away. In seconds, Sherry felt pristine and shiny, like the surface of a mirror, like the sharp, glinting, polished-steel blade of a knife.
Oh, yeah. She dropped her head back and relaxed, slumped on the couch as it moved through her, as it soothed every nerve to the point of ecstasy.
“You gonna be okay now?” Andy said.
“Mmm, yeah. I feel all yummy now.”
He leaned over and kissed her, and she put an arm around his neck, pulled him close, and gave him a long, deep kiss.
He smiled as he pulled back. “That’s nice. I want some more a that when I get back.”
He stood and she said, “Hurry back.”
Andy left the trailer. A moment later, she heard his pickup truck start. A moment after that, he backed out, then drove away.
Sherry licked her lips, then smacked them. Now she could function. She stood and prodded one of the lumps on the floor with her bare foot. “Okay, who’s on my floor?” she said. “C’mon, guys, it’s – “ She looked at the clock on the VCR. “ – it’s almost nine-thirty. It’s nighttime, guys.”
The bodies began to stir on the floor. Blankets shifted and a head popped up from beneath one of them.
“Lissa?” Sherry said.
“What?”
“Hi. I’d forgotten you were here.”
Lissa smiled, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She smacked her lips and rubbed her eyes. Looked like Lissa was feeling pretty gummy, too. She had short dark hair and a round face and was plump. Lissa and Sherry had been friends since high school.
“Who else is here, anyway?” Sherry said.
“Rob. Remember? And Philpott.”
“I remember Rob being here. When did Philpott come?” His name was Sherman, but everybody called him by his last name, Philpott.
“I dunno. Oh, and some guy.”
“Some guy?”
“Yeah, some guy, I dunno who he is.” She nudged the body beside her with a knee. “Come on, guys, wake up. It’s late.”
“You want some more, Lissa?” Sherry said.
“Oh, yeah.”
Sherry opened her kit as Lissa got up on the couch beside her. Sherry went through all the motions.
“Oh, God,” Philpott groaned as he slowly rolled over and peeled the blanket back. “My back.”
“What?” Rob said.
“My back. It’s in pain. From sleeping on the floor. How long’ve I been down here, anyway?”
“All day,” Lissa said as Sherry injected the needle. “No wonder your back hurts. Mine doesn’t feel so good, either.” Her voice became quieter and quieter and her head fell back on the cushion, and a big, slow smile spread over her face. “Mmm,” she said, and it sounded like a cat’s purr.
Sherry pulled the needle out and put her things away in the black vinyl kit.
“What the hell is this?” Philpott said.
“Oh, God,” Rob said.
Sherry looked down at the boys and tried to focus on what they were looking at.
There was one remaining lump beneath a blanket. A corner of the blanket was pulled back, and there was a puddle of something on the dirty old cigarette-burned beige carpet, something white and foamy and lumpy that disappeared under the blanket.
“Hey, dude,” Philpott said. “Wake up.” He reached over and shook the body beneath the blanket, but it did not respond.
Philpott grabbed the edge of the blanket and pulled it back in one quick movement.
A young man in his early twenties, their age, lay on the floor on his side with his mouth and eyes open. The foamy substance clung to his lips and chin. He’d vomited it onto the floor. He stared at nothing with dull, flat, milky eyes. His face was pale with a sick, yellowish hue, his messy hair dark.
“Holy shit!” Philpott said as he scrambled to get to his feet and get away from the body.
“Oh, God,” Rob said as he got on hands and knees, then stood.
Sherry gasped and shot to her feet, still holding her kit. She swayed a little unsteadily, then found her footing. “Who is that?” she said. “What… what happened?”
Rob said, “It looks like… he O.D.’d.”
“Oh, dear Jesus,” Sherry whimpered as she pressed both fists to her chin and dropped her kit to the floor. “But who is he?”
“Didn’t he come here with David this morning?” Philpott said.
“When was David here?” Sherry said.
They stared at the corpse for a while – all but Lissa, who sat slumped on the couch, her eyes closed.
Sherry tried to speak, but only croaked like a little frog. She did not recognize the pale, dead young man on the floor.
“Yeah, he was here,” Lissa said, still slumped on the couch with her eyes closed. She opened them and slowly leaned forward to sit on the edge of the couch. “David was here early this morning. Today was still on TV, so it was early.” Lissa slowly looked down and saw the body and gasped. “What the… who’s that?” she said, her voice breathy.
“That’s right,” Rob said, frowning. “I’ve got a fuzzy memory of David being here.”
Sherry said, “What’s he doing here now?”
“Well, he’s… dead,” Philpott said.
“But who is he?” Lissa said as she stood.
“We don’t know,” Philpott said.
“Well… what are we supposed to do?” Sherry said.
Timidly, Lissa said, “Call the police?”
Sherry said, “We can’t call the police, Lissa, there’s a fuckin’ meth lab in the other room.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lissa whispered.
“And we’re stoned,” Sherry said.
“Hey, I’m not stoned,” Rob said. “I gotta go, anyway.” He started looking around for his shoes.
“What?” Sherry said. “You can’t leave.”
“I brought you, Lissa,” Rob said as he put his shoes on. “You comin’ with me now?”
“No, you guys can’t leave!” Sherry said. “We have to wait till Andy gets back. Andy’ll know what to do. Don’t go!”
“I gotta go,” Rob said. “You comin’, Lissa?”
“I-I don’t know,” Lissa said. She put a hand to the side of her head, as if it hurt.
“Come on, Lissa, you can’t go,” Sherry said. “You, either, Rob. You have to stay till Andy comes back.”
“No, I don’t need this shit,” Rob said. “C’mon, Lissa, let’s go.”
“But I don’t wanna leave Sherry here with this.”
“Fine, then, stay. But I’m goin’.” Rob went to the door and opened it as he fished his keys from his pocket. Outsid
e, it was dark. “I’ll see you guys later.” He pulled the door closed after him.
They heard his car door open, then close, heard his engine start.
“I can’t believe he left,” Sherry said quietly. “I mean, we, we’ve got a-a dead body on the floor, and he, he just leaves.”
“Please cover him up,” Lissa said.
“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea,” Sherry said as she bent down and tossed the blanket over the staring body.
“I’m hungry,” Philpott said.
“How can you eat now?” Sherry said.
“My stomach’s growlin’, that’s how.”
“Well, have some cereal, or somethin’. Help yourself.”
“What are you gonna do?” he said.
Sherry sighed. “Wait for Andy to get back. I don’t know what else to do. Maybe Andy will.”
Philpott nodded and said, “Yeah, he probably will. When’s he coming back?” He went to the cupboard, got a bowl and a box of Cap’n Crunch, poured the cereal into the bowl, then went to the refrigerator for milk.
“I don’t know,” she said, thinking, Not soon enough.
“What are we gonna do with him?” Lissa said, her eyes puffy. “I mean, if we take him to the hospital, they’re gonna wanna know who we are. They’ll ask about our connection to him, they’ll wanna know who he is, they’ll ask – “
”Stop it, Lissa!” Sherry snapped. She raised her hands and buried her fingers in her hair on both sides of her head. “Just stop it, please. My God, I need a cigarette. And a drink.”
Sherry went to the end table, found her Marlboros, and lit one up with a red butane lighter.
Philpott stood leaning on the kitchen counter and ate his cereal.
“I wish I’d gone with Rob now,” Lissa said, her voice quavering. She turned and stared down at the long lump in the blanket on the floor.
“I’m sorry, Lissa,” Sherry said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m… tense. I really appreciate you stayin’ here with me. Both of you, thank you for stayin’, really.”
Philpott put his cereal down and held up a half-full bottle of tequila. “You serious about having that drink?”
“Yeah,” Sherry said. She went to the kitchen, took a glass from the counter and rinsed it out. She held out the glass and Philpott poured.
He was short and pudgy with bright red hair and a face covered with freckles. He took a glass down from the cupboard and poured some tequila for himself, took a few swallows, then picked up his cereal and finished eating it, drank the remaining milk out of the bowl, then put the bowl in the sink.
“Lissa’s right,” Sherry said. “What’re we gonna do with him without getting ourselves in trouble?”
A brief frown could not darken Philpott’s open, optimistic face. “We’ll ask Andy when he gets back. Maybe David will be with him and we can find out who this guy is.”
Sherry thought of the corpse’s open eyes and mouth and took a couple gulps of tequila. “Hurry home, Andy,” she said.
Six
Steve Regent, in unit five, heard a car pull up in front of his trailer and idle for a moment. He suspected it was his ten o’clock appointment. Sure enough, the engine was killed. Regent tried to make all his appointments during the daytime – they looked more legitimate that way. But this woman insisted on meeting him at ten at night, it was the only time she was available.
Regent went to his door, opened it, and took a step down. He waved at the small compact car parked across the entrance to his driveway. She got out of the car, and he held the door open for her as she entered the trailer.
“I hope it’s okay, where I parked,” she said.
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he said.
He kept his trailer well-lit inside so he could see them as soon as they entered, get a good look at them. They did the same thing over at Josh Garner’s house. Garner was his partner, and they usually did most of their business at the house he kept in Redding just for this purpose, but this woman had spoken to Regent and he’d been the one to talk her into it, so he’d had her come to his trailer.
She was nineteen, maybe twenty. She wore a tiny yellow shirt that exposed her flat belly, and a short, tight turquoise skirt. Her bare legs were gorgeous, maybe her best feature. Her face was okay – youthful and clean – but her legs were her selling point, her legs and her ass. Not much in the way of breasts, but she would do.
She stepped into the entryway, which opened onto the den where he kept his computer on a large desk, behind which was a long couch, a couple armchairs, a sideboard where he kept some bottles of liquor and some glasses. He led her to the right, into the living room where the couch and recliner and two other chairs faced the big-screen TV. The living room was attached to a small dining area, which was separated from the kitchen by a bar. A hallway led down to the bedrooms and bathroom.
“Have a seat,” he said.
She sat down at one end of the couch.
“Can I get you something to drink?” he said. “I’m having wine. Would you like some?”
“Sure, that would be nice,” she said.
He went to the kitchen and got another wineglass from the cupboard, poured some chilled white wine into it.
“Now remind me,” he said as he came back into the living room with a glass of wine in each hand, “your name is – “
”Heather,” she said. “Heather Winters.”
Regent handed her the drink, then sat down in an armchair, which he turned to face the couch. His drink was on the lamp table beside the chair. He picked it up and took a sip, then another. “So, Heather Winters, what can I do for you?”
“Well, your ad said you were interested in helping out young women who needed money and were willing to be photographed. That you’d pay up to seven hundred dollars.”
“That’s right.”
“Well – “ She swallowed dryly. She was very nervous, and her right leg bounced up and down frantically. “ – I’m curious to, uh, know what, uh, kind of photographs?”
“It’s nude photography. You need some quick money? I hope nothing’s wrong, Heather.”
She released a quick, nervous laugh. “Well, yeah, something’s wrong, you could say that.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I, uh… I’m, uh… my boyfriend doesn’t know yet because I haven’t told him. I know what he’ll say, what he’ll do. So I’m not going to tell him. I need money for an abortion. I’ll pay for it myself and he’ll never know the difference. I’ll tell him I’m going down to Corning to stay with my sister for a few days. And I will. Afterward. He’ll never know the difference.”
“I’m sorry you have to do that, Heather,” he said.
“Do what?”
“I’m sorry you have the kind of relationship that makes it necessary for you to do something like sneak around that way.”
“Oh. Yeah. Well. It wouldn’t go over, believe me. He’d accuse me of trying to trap him. He’d be… oh, he’d be furious. But he’d never allow me to have an abortion. He’s very conservative and he doesn’t believe in it.”
“That’s too bad. It’s something you two should be able to share joyfully.”
“Yeah, you’d think.”
Heather burst into sobs, put her wineglass on the end table, and quickly grabbed for her purse. She took a tissue from it and wiped her eyes. The sobs passed quickly. “I’m sorry, I’m just… I’m not… myself lately, you know?” She snatched up her wineglass and took a couple big gulps. When she saw how little was left, she finished it.
Regent stood and took the glass. “Let me get you a refill. Unless you’d like something stronger. I have some good scotch.”
“No, the wine’s fine.”
He went to the kitchen, poured more, then returned and handed her the glass, sat down in the chair again.
“Let me tell you the pay scale,” he said. “But first, I’ve gotta ask – are you easily offended?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, are you going to start slapping me when I give you the pay scale? Because all you have to do is say you’re not interested, you really don’t have to hit me.”
She laughed, a small, soggy sound. “No, I won’t.”
“Have you done any modeling?” he said.
“A little back in high school. My aunt owns a dress shop and I used to do some modeling for her, and I was in some of her newspaper ads.”
“Well, here’s how it works. A hundred dollars for simple nude pictures. If we get more graphic – if you masturbate, for example – then it goes up to two-fifty. Then you have the option of doing video. You can strip on video for three hundred fifty, or you can strip and masturbate for five hundred. And you get seven-fifty if you agree to give me head on camera. That, uh, that would give you the money you need for an abortion.”
“Yes, it would,” she said, but she barely got the words out before sobbing again. She sobbed quietly, her head down, and her shoulders jerked as she got another tissue from her purse. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be. I only wish I could do something more for you.”
“I’d need more to travel down to my sister’s,” she said as she wiped her eyes. She blew her nose, then stuffed all the tissues into her purse. “I don’t even have enough money for gas to Corning, I have nothing once I pay all my bills, and there’s no one I can go to for help, and I… I… “ She sniffled and shed a few more tears. Suddenly, she shook her head sharply. She stood and said, “Maybe I should go.”
“No, wait. Maybe we can work something out. Maybe a package deal.”
“What do you mean?”
“How about doing all of it for twelve hundred dollars?”
“All of it?”
“The nudie photos, the explicit photos, the video, the whole thing. You do that, and I’ll pay you twelve hundred dollars.”
She stood there and thought about it for a long time. Slowly, Heather lowered herself back onto the couch.
“Your boyfriend will never know the difference,” Regent said.
“What are they for?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The pictures and videos – what are they for, what do you do with them?”